Business student to be published in management journal

Sol Bobst's oil and gas industry job requires him to work on projects with colleagues from across the globe.

"Communication is a mixture of emails 24 hours a day, instant messaging, teleconferences, desktop sharing and phone messages," he said. "Sometimes it can go well, and sometimes it can be a disaster."

Through experience, Bobst, a business student, learned that trust within a global, virtual team is a key factor for a project to be completed on time and on budget. He decided to make building and retaining trust in a virtual work environment the topic of his fall 2010 term paper for a management class at the University of Houston-Victoria.

Bobst's paper, "Building Trust in a Global, Virtual Environment: Development of a Practical Model," will be published in the January-March 2013 edition of the Journal of Management Value and Ethics.

The journal is scheduled to go to press later this month.

"It was really satisfying turning a class project into something that anyone in the world could read," he said.

Bobst, a senior regulatory compliance and toxicology advisor at Nexeo Solutions in The Woodlands, is pursuing a Master of Business Administration and a Master of Science in Economic Development and Entrepreneurship from UHV.

The editor of the journal sent Bobst a letter stating his paper was worthy of publication. All papers considered are blindly reviewed by two management experts.

Farhang Niroomand, dean of the UHV School of Business Administration, was pleased Bobst's paper was accepted for publication.

"Many of our management faculty members have been published in management journals, but it's not every day one of our students accomplishes this feat," he said. "I congratulate Sol for this accomplishment, and we are looking forward to seeing his article in print when the journal is published."